The Perfect Weekend

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I didn’t think it was possible, but it seems that we have had two perfect weekends in a row. I didn’t write about the weekend before this one, as I just hadn’t got around to it yet. Suffice to say it was my birthday weekend, and after MANY years of fails, this one was everything I could ever have dreamed.

But as much fun as I had then, this past two days was even more amazing. It’s been a while since I’ve done a real update on the Dashbot. He’s going to have his first birthday in just over a week, and he’s just come SO far in such a short time. Given that he was nearly five weeks early, I’ve been amazed that he’s hit every one of his milestones before Dexter did. Not that it’s a competition, mind you. It’s just that Dexter is the only comparable we have!

This weekend we had two really big and really important milestones. The first one will not seem important to anyone unless you, too, have had to deal with extremely needy children. Like Dex before him, Daniel has always co-slept with me. In the last few weeks, he’s become excessively obsessed with mommy. Mark and I have been struggling because we literally NEVER had any time with just the two of us, because Daniel refused to be put down.

While even just a month or two ago we could put him in his cot for a while each evening, and he’d sleep for several hours, these last weeks, he would scream himself awake if we even DARED to try. People have told us to let him cry it out, but that has never sit well with me. I don’t mind if he cries a little, but I want him to know that I’m there, and he is never going to just be left alone to scream.

So on Thursday last week, I rearranged the house a bit. I cleared the guest room downstairs and made it into the children’s play room. I then moved the queen sized bed into Dexter’s room so that he can sleep in it since he has started to hate his toddler bed and insists on sleeping with us or in the guest room. Daniel’s crib has been in there for months, as well, though he’s never used it.

That night, I put Dash in his crib, while I crawled into the big bed with Dexter. I spent ages singing, as that is the only thing that calms the kids down. He cried for half an hour before finally laying down and sleeping. After a while, I attempted to get up and go get a drink, but as I opened the door, he woke up screaming, and I had to start all over. In the end, I made it until about 12:30 PM before giving in and bringing him in to bed.

Fast forward to Friday night, and Mark decided he wanted to have a go with helping him sleep. He had a recording of me singing and put it on a loop in the kids room, and all night long, whenever Daniel would cry, he would get out of bed and go pat his butt and help him go back to sleep (without picking him up!). It was a long night, but he didn’t give in, and it was only at 6:30 in the morning, that he brought him in to feed.

But on Saturday night, something magical happened. We put the kids to bed with music and mama’s singing, and he was fine! At around 1:30 AM, I heard him start to cry, and I looked over and saw that Mark was gone. I assumed that he was upstairs to soothe him. A few moments later, the crying stopped, and seconds after that, Mark came out of our bathroom. He hadn’t been up there at all. Daniel had managed to stop crying on his own!

And more than that, he slept through until the next morning! MILESTONE!

Amazingly, though I didn’t have high hopes, I was astounded when he did the same last night. He slept right through the night never bothering us once.

Of course, I can’t quite say the same for Dexter – who ended up in bed with us again, despite Mark putting him back in his room twice!

So anyway, that was our first big milestone for Daniel. Sleeping through the night. I can only hope it continues!

Our second big milestone was awesome to behold. I’ll let the story tell itself.

HE WALKS!

After several weeks of odd steps here and there, last week Dash started to take two to three steps at a time. On Friday, his daycare teacher said he took NINE in a row! And on Sunday, he walked all over the house, moving around like he was king of the castle. He fell down a LOT. But he kept getting up and going.

It was beautiful.

There were other reasons this weekend was great. We got a lot done around the house. A big shopping trip to BJs (like Costco) where we spent a small fortune but managed to get a LOT of necessary food for the next month, a deep clean of the house so that we aren’t living in our own filth anymore (seriously – the past few weeks have seen a serious nadir in our housekeeping standards), and a reorganization of our kitchen (I repurposed a wire shelf from my craft room and created a new pantry in an unused hallway) meant we were very busy.

Saturday was spent over at Amy’s house, visiting with her and Rowan. The kids LOVE playing together, and I relish the time with my bestie. We were able to give her a bit of free time to go grocery shopping while we watched the kids, and it was such fun to play. Unfortunately, I started getting a pretty bad cold (which is still kicking my butt!), and we ended up having to leave before sampling the Shepherd’s Pie that Amy was making for dinner.

I spent most of Sunday chopping vegetables and preparing tons of freezer meals so we have easy food prep for February. I love bulk cooking – it just makes life so much easier and means we can spend less time thinking about what we can make and more time just being happy family.

Excitingly, the weather has seemingly righted itself, as well. After weeks of cold and rain and weather like Florida is NEVER supposed to have, this weekend saw the return of sunshine and heat! Yesterday, we threw open the windows and the back door and let the house air out. We had an impromptu BBQ and life just seemed idyllic.

Amy and Rowan joined us on Sunday afternoon, as well, so it was that much more awesomeness.

Today, we have started both kids in full time daycare. It is Mark’s gift to me for the month of February to have full days devoted to finishing the book I’m writing. He believes in me and in the project, and I am so excited to have the opportunity to do it. I miss the kids, but if I’m ever going to finish this thing, I need to focus. So that’s what I’ll be doing.

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Katie

My OB congratulated me on my 4th pregnancy and then declared my situation as her “worst nightmare.” Mother, blogger, drinker of copious amounts of coffee, I’m Katie. A mom to four boys living a quiet life in the suburbs of Salt Lake City.

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